Robin Kahus says women in recovery need a voice, and she was that voice at a recent conference on drug-endangered children. She also has spoken to youth groups and appeared on a John Walsh progam about women kicking meth addiction. She also is active in her church and helps run a group called Celebrating Recovery.

"When I was a little girl, I never thought I would grow up and be a drug addict. I always thought I would grow up and be a doctor or that I would marry and have a perfect family and live in a big house in the country," she said.

Kahus turned to drugs after being sexually abused at age 12 by a health professional and family friend.

Life after meth began for her last year at the Cottonwood Family Treatment Center where she says she learned logic, anger management, relapse prevention, money management and parenting with love.

Kahus, 30, has since earned a high school diploma and graduated from a community education computer course. She operates a day spa with her mother, who after being introduced to meth by Kahus, kicked her own habit five years ago.

"My biggest accomplishment of all," she said, "is that I am a sober, healthy single mother of two amazing boys."

For one northern Utah woman there is no life after meth. For her, life is meth. She smokes it when she wakes up, like sipping a cup of coffee. She takes another hit at night, like a bedtime snack. She feels "abnormal" without it.

She stayed clean for seven years. She worked as a nurse's aide at an elderly care center, once making employee of the year.

"Imagine that," she muses.

Her knees are pulled close to her skinny 35-year-old body as she tells the sad tale of her life. Her facial features are hollow and angular, chiseled away by 20 years of meth.

"I was a good little housewife," she said. "Look at me now."

She said she fantasizes now about a life which she describes as "normal 'Leave It to Beaver' crap," fixing dinner for her husband, pulling his boots off after work.

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